Connections and Disconnections

Had a visit yesterday from a friend I used to work with.

It was weird. I felt like he hadn't changed a bit in the past 2 years (and he will probably agree), while so much has happened in my own life. In a sense, I've moved on, but we are still connected by our shared work experience and the people we know.

When he asked me to tell him about what my life is like here, I couldn't summon up the words or the energy. I have no problem sharing with moms at school and friends from church. They are people I see regularly and who already know a bit about my family life. With people who aren't in the overlapping circles of social connection, it's harder. Where do I begin? What can I say that won't bore them? Stories about what my kids love, say and do - like the girls' attempt to sing the Three Bears Song from Korean drama Full House - are fascinating only to people in the inner circle: parents, grandparents, aunts, and close girlfriends with kids of a similar age.

The gender issue is real. Most guys I know, even the ones with families of their own, aren't interested in 'too much information' and don't enthuse the same way about a toddler's achievements like a girlfriend would.

I suppose this is that season of life where my family commitments guide my social connections. I have only so much time and energy in the day, and I must exclude some for the sake of being available for those who are happy to accept that my availability, attention and even my conversation is defined by my children.

I guess that makes me the stereotype of a rather boring housewife. :)

Stuck at Assignment 7

I have been stuck forever at my 7th assignment.

The first time it came back, I was asked to resubmit Part C, the copyediting and proofreading exercise.

I ignored it the whole of the summer hols, started work on it when Beth went back to school, and received the result yesterday.

"Thank you for resubmitting Part C of your Assignment 7.

It pains me to ask you to resubmit this again rather than spell out the problems and give you a lower mark...

There is not a lot of work to do and I am sure it will not take you long to send me a super assignment."

The trouble with notching up Ds and High Ds from the start of the course is that it makes this latest setback particularly irksome. I thought I'd thrown in everything when I re-worked the assignment, but I guess I was wrong. I still have much to learn about the difference between copyediting marks and proofreading marks.

As the Jedi Masters constantly exhort their Padawans, I need to detach myself from my emotions and just focus on what needs doing.

Time to Stand and Stare

One of the privileges of my WAHM lifestyle is that I get to witness those tiny but often significant episodes as I go about my daily routine.

Let me share a couple of vignettes.

Episode One

Waiting outside the post office this morning, I saw a familiar face headed in my direction.

Rose and her family are long-time friends of ours; our shared history dates from when we were new migrants. Our girls went to the same Council kinder(3 years ago!), so for a whole year we saw each other almost everyday. These days, we hardly meet, as the children go to different schools, have different after-school activities etc. You might say our lives run in parallel, similar direction but rarely intersecting. The last time I ran into Rose (again at the Plaza), we had a lovely long chat that began with mutual cheek-touching and ended with affectionate goodbyes and regards to one another's families. That's the kind of friendship we have.

Today Rose asked what I was doing at the Plaza, and I waved the A4-sized envelope I was carrying.

"I'm enrolling Jordanne for kinder ... Can you believe it? She's not a baby anymore!"

This was followed by several minutes of marvelling over how quickly the kids have grown up.

Episode Two

Several persons ahead of me in the queue was a couple. They looked like they might have been in their late 50s or early 60s. The hubby was tall and burly, with a huge paunch hanging out over his belt. The wife was several heads shorter, slim, serene and beautiful as only a contented midlifer can be.

The wife had a huge smile on her face as she looked around her, and I thought to myself, what a lovely lady.

She leaned back against her hubby, whose belly met her upper back, and he started nudging and bouncing her with his belly the way a father would amuse a toddler. She turned around, laughing up at him and saying something audible only to both of them, and he looked down with affectionate amusement on his face.

In that moment, I thought to myself: How beautiful. I hope CA and I will still be enjoying each other like that when we reach their age.

Grade Two Already?

The start of the school year brings with it a certain sense of anticipation, of opportunity, of great things that could happen.

Beth and I have been preparing for this year, particularly in Jan, with lots of short random exposures to online general knowledge quizzes (she loves the history of Ancient Greece), assessment books and some hard thinking about what she can and should achieve.

For Math, the goal is to get her to memorize as much of the times table as she can manage. I know she probably compares dismally with her Sg peers, but I'm trying not to stress us both out. I just want to get her to a level where she can 'get it' and start to be more self-directed in her motivation and desire to learn.

For Chinese, we're continuing with the Werribee Chinese School, which this year has moved to Point Cook Community Centre, a much nicer learning environment than Glen Orden PS. I told Beth her Chinese school is located next to the new Point Cook library. She loves books, so a trip to the library will be one of the motivators for turning up to class every Sat and doing her homework, which from this year on will be required to be done daily.

I'm glad the WCS is starting to demand more of its students. There was a time when I was weighing up whether to continue with the school. Being a community language school, it caters to the middle (or even the lower spectrum, meaning those who come from non-Chinese backgrounds) and asks so little of its students, which of course translates into mediocre language outcomes. I even rang the Braybrook Xin Jin Shan Language School, but they don't have classes for Beth's age group. Pity. I might enrol Jordanne next year though, so that she gets a headstart in learning the language.

For music, Beth is starting her third year with Yamaha.

The old question of private-vs-group tuition is looming again, for a very practical reason. If she is to meet the entry requirements for a music scholarship, she must have at least a Grade 5 AMEB at Year 7. Working backwards, this is the year she should start on her AMEB. At the rate she is going, I'm not sure she is even equipped to sit an exam. She still struggles to sight-read and prefers to play from memory. When I try to teach her, she gets upset and I get exasperated and lose my temper. I keep thinking: why can't you focus? Why aren't you sitting up properly? What do you mean you can't read the music? A qualified, experienced teacher who loves working with kids would probably take a more positive approach.

Beth's after-school schedule is even more packed than 2009.
Wed - swimming
Thu - jujitsu
Sat - music and Chinese

Most of her classes are for an hour, except for swimming (30 mins) and Chinese (3 hrs!!). It's the driving back and forth that takes up so much time. But I shouldn't complain. I'm helping (I hope) to build my child's character, resilience, social and kinesthetic intelligence.

When Does The Sun Rise And Set In Melbourne?

Stumbled on this nugget while trying to find out what time sunset will take place in Q2.

This page works out the times for sunrise and sunset when you select the month and year you want.

For example, if I select May 2010, I learn that the sun rises between 7.01 and 7.25 (rising later as we progress into winter) and sets between 5.33 and 5.10 (setting later as the month draws to a close, meaning the days get shorter).

It's very handy when you need to make decisions like 'Which are the months to avoid if I send my child to sports activities, given that I can't see well enough to drive once the sun sets?' and 'Should I sign my child up for the 6-7 pm class or the 6.30-7.30 pm class?'

Answer: Avoid Terms 2 and 3.

Next thing to do: Get a pair of glasses with yellow lenses to improve night driving capability.

Thoughts on our first family camping trip

9 Jan 2010 will remain one of our family's fondest memories.

That was the day we finally - after months of talking and surfing the net and planning - experienced what it was like to go camping like any regular Aussie.

Imagine a whole bunch of strangers congregating in one sprawling tourist park for the same reason: pitching tents, setting up deck chairs, grilling dinner over a Weber, gathering around a fire to sing American Pie to guitar accompaniment (very good singing and strumming it was too), teens trying out dance moves and doing handstands, kids running barefoot, friends drinking beer and chatting late into the night while the sun refused to go down till after 9 pm.

The most magical moment must have been when we were snugly tucked in under our quilt listening to all the activity that was still going on outside. Knowing that we were not alone, that we were part of this massive meeting of strangers-with-a-common-purpose, at whom we smile and nod but will probably not see again.

Wow.

Even the accommodation options were amazing.

There were caravans and campervans. The van next in the next space proclaimed Wicked Campers. (We later saw a number of Wicked Campers vans on the GOR on our way home.)

People who had brought only their tents (like us) and people who had brought their entire outdoor furniture sets.

People who had their own BBQ equipment and were barbequing like old pros, and people who used the camp kitchen to rustle up instant noodles and luncheon meat (like us).

People with boats.




The Great Ocean Road Tourist Park is perfect for first-time campers. It's got cabins, a central brick building housing the bathrooms and laundry, another building for kitchen and indoor games, a playground, and a huge grassy area for the powered and unpowered sites with the numbers of the lots painted on the grass.





And the cost?

$42 for one night for the four of us. You can't get much cheaper, unless you go bush (no thanks....yet!).

We're thinking Wilsons Prom next.

And Philip Island. Anglesea. Lorne. Torquay. Warrnambool.

Travelling in Australia is double the fun when you can save heaps of $$ by camping.

The savings can go to special treats, like Timboon Fine Ice Cream - Mmmm!

2010: A New Decade Begins

It doesn't seem so long ago that I was counting down to the new school term.

We're now two days into 2010 and I'm thinking: where have the hols gone? A couple of weeks more and we'll be back into the grind of morning rush hour, afternoon swim lessons, Sat keyboard and Chinese class...

On 30 Dec, Mandy organized for the Sunday School kids to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, at Werribee Regina Cinemas. My good intentions of going for the 10.45 Body Vive class at Fenix Fitness were scuttled when Beth insisted tearfully that I be with her for the movie. This is my second visit to the cinema in three years, a record I am proud of. Cinema tickets cost a fortune here. $16 for an adult ticket! And a medium popcorn costs $6.50. How do ordinary families afford it?

On New Year's Eve, we invited our friends Michael and Clara over for dinner. On the menu were Hainanese Chicken Rice (anything is possible with Prima Paste), Thai green curry, fish assam pedas, pappadum and a lovely choc mud cake with ice cream after the countdown and the TV screening of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (a movie Michael commented never seemed to end).

We had such a good time that the following night, it was our turn to be guests at Michael and Clara's. Pizzas, heaps of cushions, a game of Monopoly between Michael and Beth, and two movies: Monkey Magic and Forbidden Kingdom. Both movies had Sun Wukong as the central character. MM was pure comedy (audio in Japanese) , FK was drama/fantasy with a nice spin. An American (Anglo Saxon) teenage boy is magically taken back in time by the staff of Sun Wukong and is dragged into the conflict between the evil Jade Warlord and the fearsome Witch reared by werewolves on one side, and an unlikely trio ( two monks and a young girl bent on vengeance) who are trying to defeat the Jade Warlord and recover Sun Wukong's missing staff before it falls into the enemy's hands. The boy eventually helps to resurrect Sun Wukong, who has been turned into a stone monkey by the Jade Warlord.

Today, we drove to Abbotsford to check out the Convent Arts Precinct and Collingwood Children's Farm.

We particularly enjoyed lunching at Lentil As Anything, a vegetarian restaurant staffed by volunteers where you pay as you feel. They were running a buffet lunch when we were there and the kids loved the food, which is saying something as there were no pizzas, pasta, chips or fries in sight. Beth had the privilege of putting our contribution into the wooden money chest on the counter. There's something very special and inspiring about coming to a place where nothing is expected of you, everyone is friendly and you know you're doing your little bit to be part of something that is creating a greater good.

Another reason we're grateful to be living in AUS, where there is always something new to see and do every weekend.

Summer Project

We are researching caravan parks in preparation for The Great Camping Adventure, which hubby has thrown up for consideration over many months with mounting excitement (not a shared sentiment though).

The resident kuniang (Pampered Princess) is being reluctantly co-opted into an outing that is bound to involve pesky mozzies, summer flies, minimal hygiene, inclement weather conditions and other unmentionables.

What kind of holiday is one without a 5-star resort, pool and luxury spa?

It used to be 2-2, with Beth and I being on the same side (the Dark side, some might say!).

She has somehow fallen under the spell of outdoorsy Dad's tempting tales of going bush, camping under the stars and all that boot camp stuff and straightaway fell to unpacking the tent he had just bought.

She even tried to read the instruction manual, but failed.

And asked me for help.

Which of course was no help at all.

Dad finally came to the rescue.

Father and Daughter eventually worked out how to peg the tent, and got it set up all ready for The Big Day.

In the meantime, Beth and Jordanne can have fun with their new cubbyhouse!

Maybe I should organize a couple of play dates between now and when we go camping...